Quick news roundup

In this week’s Flipped column, David Welsh interviews Dylan Acres, one of the founders of the excellent Rumiko Takahashi fan site Rumic World. I liked this, because it sums up what I like about manga:

In ’93 I was coming from this world of Marvel’s X-Men comics where everything was grim and gritty and everyone was persecuted for being a mutant. I had never read a comic where the main characters got jealous or were petty or vain, in a realistic way at least. And all of a sudden in Takahashi’s works I saw that and it really rang true.

Back at Precocious Curmudgeon, David looks at this week’s new manga.

With Iron Wok Jan coming to the end of its run, PWCW’s Kai-Ming Cha talks to folks at DrMaster about their plans to diversify—and the painful aspects of a long-running, difficult-to-translate manga. Also at PWCW: Anne Ishii, former Vertical marketing director and blogger extraordinaire, explains Tekkonkinkreet.

At Same Hat! Same Hat!!, Ryan takes a look at the covers Chip Kidd has been designing for Vertical’s classic manga and declares him out of his slump. Also: A look at Jason Thompson’s Manga: The Complete Guide, for which Ryan wrote several short reviews.

Giapet notes that the Japanese government has asked the U.S. authorities to crack down on unauthorized distribution of manga. There’s a good discussion in comments as well, and keep in mind that this may extend to scanlations someday as well. I have more thoughts on this at Digital Strips. UPDATE: Thanks to Crystal Risen in comics for correcting me on this and pointing me to this ANN story.

At the Manga Maniac Cafe, Julie has more on Aurora’s new Luv Luv line, which promises to be rather steamy.

ICv2 confirms that Blu manga prices will rise from $9.99 to $12.99 per volume.

The new issue of Otaku USA is out. I picked it up this week but haven’t had a chance to read it yet; editor Patrick Macias gives a quick overview at his blog.

Online manga update: Flex Comics Flare is an online manga magazine aimed at women, which launched this week on the Yahoo! Comics Japan website. It’s all in Japanese, of course, and even worse, the comics can only be read with Windows Internet Explorer, cutting out a huge chunk of the potential audience. Yes, this is related to the Flex Comics that recently inked a deal with DC/CMX, so maybe some of these will be coming to the U.S., not to mention Macs, soon.

Tokyo police bust a brother-and-sister team who were bumping into otaku in Akibahara and then demanding money as an apology.

Reviews: Jog looks at New Engineering, an art-manga that was in danger of being overlooked until a bunch of people saw it at SPX. Carlo Santos has a new Right Turn Only!! column up, with harsh words for a handful of manga and kisses for others. Ben Leary checks out vol. 1 of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED X Astray at Anime on DVD. Julie is serving up some manhwa at the Manga Maniac Cafe, with reviews of vol. 1 of Chunchu: The Genocide Fiend and vol. 1 of Bride of the Water God. Nick posts a brief and unenthusiastic review of vol. 1 of Shinshoku Kiss at Hobotaku. Holly Ellingwood keeps busy at Active Anime with reviews of vol. 2 of Innocent Bird, vol. 4 of Kitchen Princess, and vol. 11 of Black Cat. At Prospero’s Manga, Ferdinand refuses to suspend his disbelief for vol. 1 of Missile Happy but has good things to say about vol. 1 of Psycho Busters.